RBPB4 [SPOILERS] - De Gaulle of the Egyptians

[Lord Parkin]

Yeah, I guess I agree... the Great Wall really isn't worth it right now. If it gave something other than Great Spy points, it might be, but it doesn't so never mind.

I chatted with SleepingMoogle, and he hadn't changed his mind - still set on rushing out the Hanging Gardens even if it's a net loss for him. He did seem to have calmed down and become more friendly though, so I guess that's something.

We're still building the Hanging Gardens, although we're not going to whip like crazy to get it (since that'd effectively negate its benefit for us). If Moogle wants to whip like crazy to get it, that's his loss - we're not going to let him drag us down with him. If he's bluffing (which I don't think he is), we'll get the wonder very soon. If not, we still get gold at a very decent rate regardless, which will help us in researching Currency faster. (We'll need to concentrate on that anyway, as we'll have 10 cities in 5 turns - bringing us down to ~30% break-even on the slider.)

[Ellimist]

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[nabaxo]

All righty, just checking in to say that I got of my arse and decided to be a full-time lurker on this thread as well. Hopefully I can bring some useful input.

[Lord Parkin]

Great to have you here, Nabaxo.

Well, SleepingMoogle got the Hanging Gardens on turn 84. Interestingly, that's the same turn we could have got it if we'd gone all-out for it, and the randomised production order happened to put us ahead of Moogle so we would have got it that way had we completed it this turn. However, doing that would have stifled our expansion and wouldn't really have been worth the sacrifice required, so I'm glad we didn't bother. (Also, changing our path might have changed the production order for that turn, who knows.)

Anyway, Moogle got the wonder through sheer determination, and I congratulated him on that - although I still think it was a bad move for him overall. Chatting with him confirmed that he sacrificed 4 population points for Aqueduct/Settler whips in the last few turns, and only gained 7 pop points from the wonder. That's a net gain of only 3 pop points (worth ~90 hammers) for an investment of 300 hammers (Aqueduct + HG). Essentially 210 hammers for +3 health in one city and +1 health in all others, on a map where health isn't needed at all for a long time. There's the Great Engineer points too, but they won't be of any significance for 60-90 turns (if at all). So while the completion time is impressive, I still reckon he didn't think this one through properly.

Oh well, we're richer thanks to the gold, and our capital is still large and growing, so I'm not too concerned.

[Lord Parkin]

Time for some screenshots I think... haven't updated in a while due to my time being taken up with diplomacy. (There's been some other diplomacy as well, aside from stuff with SleepingMoogle, which I'll get around to reporting on later.)

We just finished Sailing this turn, so our gold went up due to trade routes with Luddite. I've negotiated open borders with everyone except Rego (Mackoti's should go through this turn), so that should keep us in the green for a while to come despite our expansion to 10-11 cities in the near future.

Settlers and Workers are the main production items at the moment in most cities up north, although the capital's working on a Barracks so it can grow a bit more and work more cottages/scientists. I'm aiming to get it to size 10 just as the Ivory comes in, and size 12 just when the Silver comes in. (We'll get Gems back from Luddite when we grow to size 11.)

The Horse City will be founded on turn 87 thanks to the Settler from Pantherinae, and the Silver City a few turns later from a later Settler.



The cities down south are working on a mix of items.

Magadan's still providing military - it finished a Spearman a few turns back, and is working on an Axeman now. Might build a Lighthouse and/or the Moai Statues there soon, now that we have Sailing.

Evermore's working on a Granary while it grows (to work specialists), and will build itself a Library next (assisted by chops).

Felidae is finishing off a Worker after producing a pair of Settlers, and then will work on growing itself (working new river-cottages) while producing a Granary and Library.

Also founded a new city this turn - Onca, which you can see in the top right of the screenshot below.



Down south, we'll be founding both the Corn-double Ivory and Pig-Gold cities next turn.



Demographics are reasonable. Production and food will improve as we found new cities and as our existing ones grow. GNP will stagnate a little, but we'll recover quickly enough.

[Lord Parkin]

I've talked to Luddite about the Temple of Artemis, and he's confirmed that he's no longer going with it, and is okay if we go for it. So, the question is, do we want to build it?

The downside is that we'd have to spend beakers on Polytheism, which would slow down Currency by a few turns.

The upside is that we'd get something useful for our capital to work on while it grows (other than spamming military units which we don't need right now). I think we'd get the wonder on turn 96 (will confirm later), or else we'd get a bunch of gold if we missed it - which would possibly be equally useful for us right now.

So, thoughts? I'm quite keen to go for it. There's also the side benefit that we'd probably make sure Rego didn't get it - which would be very bad for us in combination with his Great Lighthouse.

[nabaxo]

I say go for it. Another side benefit is the free priest for a future great prophet.

[Senseless]

I agree with going for the Temple of Artemis.

You mentioned that Luddite is not in the running for this wonder, and SleepingMoogle presumably is not interested given his recent HG finish. Have you discussed the wonder with Mackoti at all?

[Lord Parkin]

Thanks for the support. (Although Nabaxo, we won't have much trouble getting Great Prophets anyway due to our Obelisks as Egypt. Still, the +5 GPP's are nice, and even a Merchant wouldn't be bad.)

Good point, Senseless... I'll get in contact with Mackoti and SleepingMoogle soon. Although, I doubt they'll be going for the wonder - Moogle due to just making a huge effort on the Gardens, and Mackoti due to (presumed) border tensions with Luddite. I'm not even sure either of them have Polytheism yet anyway.

The main rival I'm potentially concerned about is actually Plako, as he's got to have Polytheism since he founded Judaism, and he has one heck of a production base to work from. However, the Temple of Artemis would still be very costly for him as a non-Industrious nation. And besides, as I've mentioned above, even if we lose the wonder it still does just about as much for us.

[Lord Parkin]

Rego and I chatted about working out a formal border agreement and NAP a while ago, so I finally got around to writing a proposition.

Hi Rego and Sunrise,

Thought I'd finally get around to writing that NAP proposition we talked about a couple of days ago. Sorry about the delay, I've been a bit busy with work lately. Anyway, without further ado, let's get on to it.

I think we both agreed that a non-aggression pact should involve the following:
- No directly aggressive moves (i.e. war) against the other player for the duration of the pact (obviously).
- No passive-aggressive moves against the other player for the duration of the pact. This would include:
- No founding of cities in contested locations between us (i.e. aggressive expansion) without prior agreement of the other player.
- No allowing passage for a third party invasion against the other player through or around the edge of our territories.
- No assisting or "helping out" third parties at war with, or known to be planning war with, the other player (e.g. by gifting gold or strategic resources).

Anything I missed? It's entirely possible I've overlooked something from our earlier discussion (I only briefly skimmed it), so please correct me if so.

Obviously the main thing that needs clearer definition is the border boundary between us. I've mentioned before that there's a particular Clam SW of your latest city which is closer to us than to you, and it'd be appreciated if you didn't settle so that that Clam was in your BFC. (That'd just force us to settle so it was closer to us, and then we'd needlessly have a lot of culture pressure on both our cities.)

Aside from that, I suggest we make use of the natural land features between us as a border for now. After all, the "peak blockers" and seas make up a very easy-to-follow natural boundary for both of us. I suggest we treat the small amount of land on the other side of all these "peak blockers" (on both your side and mine) as effective islands which were forcibly joined to the main land mass - which we've discussed before as a likely possibility. Certainly both of us would require Galleys to reach these locations anyway, so they're basically islands in that respect.

As far as I can tell there seem to be 3-4 of these islands between us... if it's 3 then that might make it tricky (but not impossible) to split between us. Anyway, that requires more exploration to decide, I think. How about, for now, we both simply agree not to settle across the peaks or sea on any of these islands until further discussion? I believe we both have a reasonable amount of other easier-access land to expand into right now anyway, so we'll probably naturally want to claim that first before any islands regardless. That is, unless a particular island location seems too attractive to pass up for long - in which case we could start early negotiations. Does that seem fair to you?

I think that covers pretty much everything I can think of... let me know what you think. Assuming we both agree on the border division and NAP conditions, the only thing left to decide is the NAP length. I have two suggestions:
- Short term: ~50 turns in length, specifically ending on turn 140 (600 AD)
- Long term: ~80 turns in length, specifically ending on turn 170 (1100 AD)

In both cases we could of course extend the NAP further at any point if we both agreed. The main difference would be that the long term agreement would offer more peace of mind for both of us to expand, and the ability for us both to concentrate more on issues we might have with other nations in the near future.

Looking forward to heading back from you soon.

Kind regards,
Lord Parkin

Will see what he says. It'll be interesting to see if he veers towards the shorter term or longer term in his preference for NAP length.